What to Expect at an Appointment
When you go to a health care appointment, your provider will ask questions about your REALD demographic information. REALD is an acronym that stands for race, ethnicity, language, and disability.
They might ask you these questions verbally, or give you
a questionnaire like this to complete.
REALD is an acronym that stands for race, ethnicity, language, and disability. House Bill 4212 (2020 1st Special Session) requires health care providers to ask patients about REALD information at health care visits related to COVID-19. Then they share this information with OHA.
This requirement helps the state understand who is most impacted by COVID-19, so it can better provide funding and services to these communities. OHA worked with Oregon communities of color when developing this requirement, including Asian Pacific American Network of Oregon (APANO) and Oregon Health Equity Alliance (OHEA).
Your answers to REALD questions will help us understand who is most affected by diseases like COVID-19, so we can work with these communities and learn how best to support them. We can also make sure the resources we provide are culturally appropriate and easily accessed by the groups that need them.
For example, if we learn that one group of people has more COVID-19 cases than other groups, we can make sure that group gets more testing and resources like masks.
It’s up to you whether you answer the REALD questions. While your provider is required to ask you all the REALD questions, you aren’t required to answer all of them.
For questions you don’t want to answer, you can choose “Decline to answer.”
OHA hopes you’ll answer these questions, so they can better serve you and all Oregonians.
We want everyone to feel safe answering REALD questions. Your information is strictly confidential and will be treated as a confidential public health record. This means your information will not be shared with other agencies, including immigration officials.
OHA does not include your personal information, like name or date of birth, when reporting COVID-19 cases or race/ethnicity information to federal agencies like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Sharing your REALD data will not impact any benefits you receive from the state, like SNAP or Oregon Health Plan/CAWEM. This means your information will not be shared with other agencies, including immigration officials.